Most probably you know the benefit of an electronic health record system. However, the point of focus is that choosing the right one for your work gets difficult because there is a great deal of EHR options. Different criteria differ for the variety of EHR available and make them suitable according to certain requirements and usage. Also, there are different types of electronic health record systems too. Medical care providers clearly know that selection of a system for their medical practice is not something simple.
In this article, you will get to know details about the EHR system and types of EHR. This way it will become a bit easy for you to understand and choose the best type of electronic health record system for your medical practice.
Electronic health record – What is it?
The Electric Health Record or EHR is a system that works as one system for the convenience of the physician to keep the entire track record of their patient’s health information. Usually, this is computer-based software that has a saved file for each of the patient’s health aspects. The best thing about this system is that it helps in increased efficiency and gives instant access to the patient’s information.
Benefits of the EHRs
The electronic Health Record system has a great deal of benefits. It makes it quite simple and commonplace for the medical care professional to access the patient info remotely. Alongside, it also makes the one aware of the potent danger medication error way sooner. The certain EHR that shares information between several different medical care providers also enables the doctor to know about the critical lab values in a quicker pace. Such information sharing takes the user ahead to knowledge and this is the step that helps in improving the overall health of the patient in the long term.
Some reports by the physicians using the EHR system mentioned that it enhanced the overall health and care of their patients.
What are the types of EHR systems?
There are a variety of ways in which these EHR systems get configured. Each of those has its own pros and cons following the medical practice requirements and needs.
Here are the major types of EHR systems.
1. Physician-hosted system
Basically, a physician-hosted system means that the entire data getting hosted by the server of physicians.
In this, the physician is inclined to purchase the hardware and software alongside continuing the maintenance and security of the data that is stored on the physician’s servers. These types of Electronic Health Records systems get hosted by the physician while their medical practice has chances to benefit the larger practice. That larger practice has the potential to cover the overhead price of using the difficult software. Also, the onsite servers help in speeding up the EHR system and make it a reliable source of knowledge.
2. Remotely-hosted system
Remotely-hosted EHR systems move the data storage from the physician to third parties. This type of body is needed to get deal with a lot of maintenance, security, and backup of the entire data. EHR systems that are remotely hosted set aside the duty of data maintenance anywhere else that is apart from one physician or medical practice. This change of responsibility may get attractive to smaller practices or any of the medical care providers whose core focus is to collect the information instead of storing it. Such kind of system decreases the issues of IT that are liable to take away the attention of physicians from their care and the well-being of patients.
3. Remote system
This type of EHR has further three varieties, which are described below;
- Subsidized
This of the system involves a relationship with the body that subsidizes the price of the EHR software. On a general point, the physician makes the relationship with a hospital then that controls the data. Note that the remote system involves a subsidizing entity that is liable to bring up some particular legal issues that include data ownership concerns and antitrust.
- Dedicated
A host system that is dedicated means that the physician’s store EHR on certain vendor servers. Usually, such servers are in particular locations. Moreover, a physician is totally unable to control most of the aspects of the data storage incorporated with the dedicated system.
- Cloud
So this one is one of the most popular EHR remote systems. This is a cloud or internet-based computing system. In this HER system, the physician does not require to store any patient’s data on their own servers. But the vendor stores that in the cloud. So this means that the data always gets stored anywhere else with security on the internet. Also, it can easily get accessed via the website of the vendor.
How to choose the EHR system that meets your organization’s needs?
Certain types of electronic health record systems are more attractive to medical professionals. Most of the time cloud-based systems are considered because of their cost-efficient means of storing data. It is ideal for organizations that are unable to hire an IT professional for the management and maintenance of the data.
Although, the large size of the health system has the possibility and organization capacity to hire an IT team and buy costly hardware. Moreover, the physician-hosted system is great for those organization that requires absolute control over their data that including optimization, infrastructure, and security.
Final words
Initially, to choose the right type of EHR system for your organization is to consider different options alongside knowing its pros and cons. Make sure to know your needs and budget before buying an electronic health record system software. Keep this in mind you need something that works for you following your ways, not something that requires you to change your practice.
This is the precise guide about EHRs and the types of EHR systems. Hopefully, it helps you in selecting your next system for patients’ health record information.